Middle East Revolutions: Current Bahrain protests getting violent

[noblemountain]

This thread has been dead lately...here's a little update on what has been going on for the past few days:

US involvement:

Spoiler: show

By ROBERT BURNS, AP National Security Writer
WASHINGTON – The U.S. on Friday launched a multipronged effort to assist throngs of foreign workers who fled the fighting in Libya, sending two Air Force cargo planes to deliver blankets and other supplies in neighboring Tunisia. Plans were made to fly an unspecified number of refugees from camps along the Libya-Tunisia border on Saturday.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that in addition to the military cargo flights to Djerba, Tunisia, the U.S. Agency for International Development chartered two civilian aircraft to help repatriate foreign workers who have fled Libya amid an armed insurrection against the government of Moammar Gadhafi.

Even with the emphasis on humanitarian rather that overt military action, the risk of encountering hostility and violence along the border could not be discounted. It was not clear Friday how U.S. and other international efforts to fly foreign workers away from the border area would be carried out.

"We know that there is a lot of confusion on the ground that is often difficult for us to sort through to get to what the actual facts are," Clinton said. "But the United States remains deeply concerned about the welfare of the Libyan people. Both the Libyans and those who are fleeing Libya are the subject of our outreach."

Also Friday, the Treasury Department said Secretary Timothy Geithner would visit Germany on Tuesday for talks with German officials about global efforts to pressure the Gadhafi government through economic penalties.

Geithner told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday that the U.S. has frozen about $32 billion in Libyan assets.

President Barack Obama declared on Thursday that Gadhafi must leave, and he said his administration was considering a full range of options, including the imposition of a "no-fly" zone over Libya.

But Obama's emphasis was on humanitarian relief, and that was where the U.S. military began its efforts Friday.

Two U.S. amphibious warships, the USS Kearsarge and the USS Ponce, were available in the Mediterranean but had not yet received orders to participate in humanitarian missions or military action, officials said.

Pentagon spokesman Col. David Lapan said the military has not been given orders beyond the two cargo flights Friday and a planned transport of refugees on the Tunisian side of the border on Saturday.

The overall military effort, including movements of ships and the dispatching of an additional 400 Marines to the Kearsarge, has been code-named Operation Odyssey Dawn, Lapan said. On Friday the extra Marines were at a naval base at Souda Bay on the Greek island of Crete, the spokesman said.

Two C-130 cargo planes flew from Ramstein Air Base in Germany and picked up relief supplies at a USAID warehouse in Italy before heading to Tunisia. Lapan said the supplies included 4,000 blankets, 9,600 10-liter water containers and 40 rolls of plastic sheeting that can be used for shelter.

The planes were expected to fly later to Souda Bay and then return to Tunisia on Saturday to pick up an unspecified number of stranded Egyptians and fly them home, he said.

Pressure for the U.S. to prepare for a more robust response to the Libya crisis continued to mount on Capitol Hill. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., issued a joint statement Friday urging the White House not to forget the lessons of Rwanda and Bosnia in the 1990s, where the U.S. and the international community were slow to respond to widespread violence and humanitarian disaster.

"We know that the international community has in the past been too slow to react to situations like the one unfolding in Libya - with awful and unspeakable costs in human life," McCain and Lieberman said. "For both moral and strategic reasons, we must not repeat this mistake."

Most recent fighting in Tripoli:

Spoiler: show

By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press Maggie Michael, Associated Press – 1 hr 47 mins ago

TRIPOLI, Libya – Moammar Gadhafi's regime struck back at its opponents with a powerful attack Friday on the closest opposition-held city to Tripoli and a barrage of tear gas and live ammunition to smother new protests in the capital. At least 37 people died in fighting and in an explosion at an ammunitions depot in Libya's rebellious east.

The bloodshed signaled an escalation in efforts by both sides to break the deadlock that has gripped Libya's 18-day upheaval, which has lasted longer than the Egyptian revolt that led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak and inspired a wave of protests across the region.

So far, Gadhafi has had little success in taking back territory, with several rebel cities repelling assaults and the entire eastern half of the country under rebel control. But the opposition forces have seemed unable to go on the offensive to march on pro-Gadhafi areas.

Meanwhile, in Tripoli — Gadhafi's most important bastion — his loyalists have waged a campaign of terror to ensure that protesters do not rise up in significant numbers.

Friday's assault on the rebel city of Zawiya, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Tripoli, appeared to be the strongest yet by Gadhafi's forces after repeated earlier forays against it were beaten back.

In the morning, troops from the elite Khamis Brigade — named after the Gadhafi son who commands it — bombarded the city's western edges with mortar shells, heavy machine guns, tanks and anti-aircraft weapons, several residents said. By the evening, another brigade had opened a front on the eastern side. Armed Zawiya citizens backed by allied army units were fighting back.

The commander of the rebel forces — Col. Hussein Darbouk — was killed by fire from an anti-aircraft gun, said Alaa al-Zawi, an activist in the city. Darbouk was a colonel in Gadhafi's army who defected along with other troops in Zawiya early in the uprising.

A witness in Zawiya's hospital said at least 18 people were killed and 120 wounded. Libyan state TV reported the attackers had retaken the city. But al-Zawi, the witness and other residents said it remained in rebel hands, with skirmishes continuing after nightfall.

A doctor on the scene said pro-Gadhafi fighters would not allow medics to treat the injured, opened fire on ambulances trying to assist and hauled away the bodies of some of the dead in an apparent effort to keep death toll reports low. The gunmen killed a wounded rebel with three shots as a medic tried to pull him to safety, then even threatened to shoot the medic, the doctor said.

The doctor and witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

The day's other fighting took place at Ras Lanouf, a small oil port 380 miles (620 kilometers) east of Tripoli, just outside the long swath of eastern Libya controlled by the opposition.

Rebels attacked Ras Lanouf on Friday afternoon, feeling flush with victory after repelling Gadhafi forces who attacked them days earlier at Brega, a larger oil facility just to the east. Fighters armed with Kalashnikovs and heavy machine guns were seen streaming in pickup trucks and other vehicles from Brega heading in the direction of Ras Lanouf.

They battled about 3,000 pro-Gadhafi troops, mainly around the facility's airstrip, said a resident of the town. She reported heavy explosions starting around 4 p.m. As night fell, the explosions eased, she said, but it was not clear who was in control of the complex, which includes a port and storage facilities for crude coming from fields in the deserts to the south.

Ahmed al-Zwei, a member of the post-uprising town committee in nearby Ajdabiya, said the rebels were in control of the Ras Lanouf airstrip and the oil and gas facilities, and the regime forces had returned to their base at Sirte, a Gadhafi stronghold.

At least two dead and 16 wounded were taken to the hospital at nearby Ajdabiya, although that did not include the toll from other hospitals in the area. Al-Zwei, however, said the Gadhafi forces had killed 20 guards from the two facilities. The death toll couldn't immediately be confirmed.

To the northeast, hospital officials said at least 17 people were killed in an explosion at an ammunition storage facility at a military base about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

The blast destroyed one warehouse in the base and damaged a second, according to an ambulance driver who said he recovered body parts from the scene. The driver spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

"There were so many people killed. I can't describe it," said a resident of Benghazi who gave his name as Abdullah and whose voice was filled with emotion.

Dr. Habib al-Obeidi in Benghazi's al-Jalaa hospital says the blast also hit a residential area. Witnesses on the scene, said secondary explosions destroyed two firetrucks.

The cause of the blast was unclear. Al-Obeidi says it apparently was triggered when people went into the storage facility to collect weapons, but others blamed pro-Gadhafi saboteurs.

The fall of other parts of the country has made control of Tripoli crucial for Gahdafi. His loyalists have taken fierce action to ensure protesters cannot rise up and overwhelm the city as they have in other places.

Last week, Friday marches were met by gunfire from militiamen shooting into crowds, killing a still undetermined number. Since then, pro-Gadhafi forces have carried out a wave of arrests against suspected demonstrators, snatching some from their homes in nighttime raids and terrorizing even the most restive neighborhoods.

The fear seemed to have had an impact, and some protests planned Friday in other parts of the capital didn't get off the ground. One resident said he went to prayers at a downtown mosque and found police officers standing outside to ensure no one marched. After prayers, worshippers dispersed without protests.

Some 400 protesters marched out of the Murad Agha mosque after noon prayers in the eastern Tripoli district of Tajoura, chanting, "The people want to bring the regime down!" and waved the red, black and green flag of Libya's pre-Gadhafi monarchy, which has become the banner of the uprising.

Pro-Gadhafi forces quickly moved in. They fired volleys of tear gas and — when the marchers continued — opened fire with live ammunition, according to witnesses.

It was not clear if they fired at the crowd or into the air, but the protesters scattered, many of them taking refuge back in the mosque, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene. A doctor said several people were wounded and taken to a hospital.

"All these people are threatened with death," said a 35-year-old among the Tajoura protesters Friday. "We have no education, no economy, no infrastructure. ... We want nothing but the end of the regime. We were born free but he is suppressing us." He said he had recently had kidney surgery, but "look at me, still I went out with the people because we are oppressed people."

"I am not afraid," said another man in the march. "We want to show the world that we are not afraid."

Thousands of Gadhafi supporters later packed into the capital's central Green Square, waving green flags and pictures of the Libyan leader in a counterdemonstration complete with fireworks.

Armed men dressed in blue formed a security cordon around mosques in Tripoli while helicopters buzzed overhead.

Before prayers, some 1,500 worshippers inside the Murad Agha mosque debated what to do.

At one point, they decided to hold a sit-in inside the mosque to avoid coming under gunfire by stepping outside. In the mosque's courtyard, they burned a copy of the Green Book, Gadhafi's political manifesto, as well as the green flag of Gadhafi's Libya.

At the same time, young men from the neighborhood transformed a nearby square, tearing down posters of the Libyan leader and replacing them with the flags. They spray-painted walls with graffiti reading, "Down with Gadhafi" and "Tajoura will dig your grave."

In the end, the 400 worshippers in the mosque decided to march.

Internet services, which have been spotty throughout Libya's upheaval, appeared to be halted completely in Tripoli on Friday before the protests. Renesys Corp., a Manchester, New Hampshire, company that maps the pathways of the Internet, said it wasn't able to reach any of the websites it tried to access inside Libya. Google's transparency report, which shows traffic to the company's sites from various countries, also showed that Internet traffic in Libya had fallen to zero.

Libyan authorities briefly barred many foreign journalists from leaving their Tripoli hotel, claiming it was for their protection because they had information "al-Qaida elements" planned to open fire on police to spark clashes. They later allowed them to go out.

Several hours before prayers, security forces began taking up positions. In Tajoura, police set up two checkpoints on the main highway to downtown. They stopped cars to search them, check IDs and question them.

___

El Deeb reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Paul Schemm in Benghazi, Libya; Bassem Mroue in Cairo and Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed to this report.

And just for good measure...the internet is now completely shut off in Libya:

Spoiler: show

By DANA WOLLMAN, AP Technology Writer Dana Wollman, Ap Technology Writer – Fri Mar 4, 5:15 pm ET

NEW YORK – Internet services in Libya, already spotty throughout the country's violent upheaval, appeared completely halted in an attempt to stifle information about the insurrection.

The move, coming ahead of planned protests in Libya, appears similar to Egypt's response to the demonstrations that led President Hosni Mubarak to step down last month. The Libyan government controls the country's primary Internet service provider.

Arbor Networks, a Chelmsford, Mass., network security company said Friday that all Internet traffic coming in and out of Libya had ceased, starting at about noon EST Thursday (7 p.m. in Tripoli, Libya). Google's transparency report, which shows traffic to the company's sites from various countries, also showed that Internet traffic had fallen to zero in Libya.

Several days into Egypt's largely nonviolent protest, the government there shut down Internet access for almost a week. Anti-government protesters there had been using social-media services such as Facebook and Twitter to organize and share personal experiences of the unrest.

That wasn't the case in Libya, a country where relatively few people have Internet access. Only about 6 percent of Libyans have Internet access in the home or in public places, such as Internet cafes, according to the research group OpenNet Initiative. That compares with 24 percent of Egyptians and 81 percent of people in the U.S., according to OpenNet.

As a result, services such as Facebook and Twitter have played a marginal role in galvanizing anti-government protesters, said Jillian York, who coordinates the OpenNet Initiative, a research project run by scholars at Harvard University and the University of Toronto and by the Canadian consultancy SecDev Group.

Nonetheless, because the Internet isn't as central to everyday life in Libya, it is more likely that the few who can get online are educated, influential and using the Web to keep informed about politics, York said.

"You've got millions of people in Egypt using the Internet. It's not just the few people with access are reporting on protests. It's mommy blogging. It's all sorts of things not related to the protests," she said. "In Libya there's a stronger chance they'd be focused on what's happening right now politically."

But the blackout will affect even those who are not politically active. The loss of Internet access will make it more difficult for Libyans, particularly those living in the capital of Tripoli, to receive updates about the uprising in other parts of the country, said Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington-based nonprofit that promotes free expression on the Internet.

"For the people not in Tripoli the Internet is not so central in what's become an armed rebellion," she said. "For the people in Tripoli it's going to further isolate them from people in other parts of the country and information about what's happening there."

In particular, an Internet blackout in Libya will make it tougher for people outside the country to know how the uprising is unfolding. That was likely the government's main motivation in shutting down the Internet in a country where people are more likely to communicate using cell phones, said Richard Esguerra, policy analyst with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

"I think what it raises is illuminating about how desperate this act is," he said. "Shutting off the Internet seems to be one of the last things in the playbook in terms of a dictator that's being threatened by uprisings."

The AP saw no evidence of cell phone disruptions in Libya on Friday though coverage has on occasion been spotty. Libya has one of the highest concentrations of cell phone users in Africa. The Libyan government owns the country's two mobile phone operators.

[Mistress Stowastiq]

Uh, this is not good.
I was wondering when the Libyan Mac guyver armies were going to make the errors that even professionally trained and well-equiped military units can make but was hoping it would not be too bad. Still, the arrests were intentional and said to make a point about foreign troops being on Libyan soil.


SkyTV online news is cycling the story periodically with updates. So far they say there is no intention of hurting the SAS. I heard yesterday that leet British military troops were being sent to negotiate with the opposition forces and aid their combat with advice. Perhaps they were referring to SAS.

Libyan rebels seize British SAS troops-Sunday Times
Sun Mar 6, 2011 1:24am GMT

LONDON, March 6 (Reuters) - Libyan rebels have captured a British special forces unit in the east of the country after a secret diplomatic mission to make contact with opposition leaders backfired, Britain's Sunday Times reported. The team, understood to number up to eight SAS soldiers, were intercepted as they escorted a junior diplomat through rebel-held territory, the newspaper said.

The Foreign Office said in a brief statement it could neither "confirm or deny" the report.

Earlier on Saturday the Geneva-based Human Rights Solidarity group, which employs a number of Libyan exiles, told Reuters by telephone that a team of "eight special forces personnel" had been seized by rebels. Both the Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office repeatedly declined to comment on the group's report.

The SAS intervention apparently angered Libyan opposition figures, who ordered the soldiers locked up on a military base, according to the Sunday Times.

Opponents of longtime Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi fear he could use any evidence of Western military intervention to rally patriotic support away from a two-week-old uprising against his 41-year autocratic rule.

Citing Libyan sources, the Sunday Times said the special forces troops were taken by rebels to Benghazi, Libya's second largest city and epicentre of the insurrection, and hauled before one of its most senior politicians for questioning.

The paper said the junior diplomat they were escorting was preparing the way for a visit by a more senior colleague ahead of establishing diplomatic relations with the rebels.

The Sunday Times said Libyan opposition officials were said to be trying to hush up the incident for fear of a backlash from ordinary Libyans.

(Reporting by Stefano Ambrogi; editing by Mark Heinrich)

5 March 2011 Last updated at 22:40 ET
MoD silent over report of SAS men captured in Libya

Rebel militiamen in eastern Libya Rebel forces, opposed to Colonel Gaddafi, are in control of much of eastern Libya

The Ministry of Defence says it will not comment on a claim in the Sunday Times that members of the SAS have been seized by rebel forces in Libya.

In a statement, the MoD said: "We do not comment on the special forces."

The paper claims the unit was involved in a secret mission to put British diplomats in touch with rebels trying to topple Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

It says eight SAS men, in plain clothes but armed, were captured as they escorted the diplomat in eastern Libya.

The paper claims the SAS soldiers were taken to Benghazi, the rebel stronghold, where they are being interrogated.

Troops loyal to Col Gaddafi have clashed with rebel forces in the central town of Zawiya in the last few days amid growing fears of a civil war.

The full statement from the MoD read: "We neither confirm nor deny the story and we do not comment on the special forces."

Geneva-based Human Rights Solidarity group said it was aware that a team of special forces had been seized by Libyan rebels but it did not know which country they were from.

Separately, a group of Dutch special forces was apparently captured by Col Gaddafi's forces in western Libya while trying to assist Dutch nationals to evacuate from the country.

Earlier, the MoD had confirmed Scottish troops were on standby to assist with humanitarian and evacuation operations in Libya.

The Black Watch, 3rd Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, is on a routine deployment notice of 24 hours at an RAF base in Wiltshire.

But they have not been earmarked for a combat role.

Also opposition forces are reportedly in Tripoli and Sirt [Gaddafi hometown]. Sounds of battle are currently heard in Tripoli by Sky News reporters who are there under supervision of Libyan Gaddafi authorities so they cannot leave unless bussed by them. They do have other unsupervised reporters there though in Zawiyah like Alex Crawford and she is doing amazing work often right close to battles.

[Gwynplaine]

A great win for the youth of Egypt, who were the driving force of this revolution. I truly hope they get the rights and freedoms they seek and deserve.

Don't hold your breath... meet the new dictator, worse than the old dictator.

Again, post news links when that is apparent.

Well that time has come. Only took them less than 2 years. It's morbidly fascinating watching the region implode and turn into one big theocracy.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world...s-8371925.html

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...MPLATE=DEFAULT

[Ksandra]

Have the new egypt stuff go here:

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/113...atorial-powers